


Sunrise, Sunset

by illeden93



Category: Naruto
Genre: ? - Freeform, Akatsuki - Freeform, Canon-Typical Violence, HIdan is crazy, I Don't Even Know, Immortality, Insanity, Minor Character Death, Ninjas are crazy, Self-Insert, Temporary Character Death, Unreliable Narrator, oc-insert, sort of but not really, violence turning people on
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-06-10
Updated: 2016-10-21
Packaged: 2018-07-14 04:12:32
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 5
Words: 8,490
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7153028
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/illeden93/pseuds/illeden93
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Who’s to say death and unwilling rebirth wouldn’t drive someone a little bit round the bend?<br/>Modern OC-insert as Hidan.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Birth of a Monster

**Author's Note:**

> I have no idea where I'm going with this. Should be fun.

Before Hidan became Hidan, he’d been an altogether different person—a person with dreams, desires, family, friends, worries—before that entire life had been wiped away in one fell swoop (then again, he wasn’t _really_ dead. Was he?).

He (she, they, it) died. But they didn’t 'move on' to whatever is supposed to happen after death. _Because of course they didn’t. Wouldn’t be much_   _of_ _a story if they did._ Instead, they lingered in some place between (for a time).

It was in that strange abyss (can it be an abyss when it’s not empty?)--in that _between_ place that greeted him after death that something found him. Something _terrible_. Something so horrifying and _wrong_  that any words failed to describe it.

 _‘Why?’_ He might have asked it, if he had a mouth to speak.

 _‘Because.’_ The thing in the dark explained.

\-------

His mother reached the end of her term at the beginning of April. She gave birth at mid-night, after hours of contractions and breathing and breaking whatever was put into her hands.

The day Hidan was born, his new mother’s usually cold and stern countenance broke—her son was simply too perfect, too lovely to be true. With his lilac colored eyes (the same as her own) and the bright tufts of silver hair on his head, everything about him was beautiful.

She got over this period of appreciation, the glow of motherhood, extraordinarily quickly. After all, she knew just how much work was ahead of her—the path they were to walk would be a difficult one. She couldn’t let gentleness get in the way of her duty as a mother.

Her lover might have been a good-for-nothing nobody, and might have died a good-for-nothing nobody. But, if she had her way, her son wouldn’t be anything less than _great._

Unfortunately for people of Yugakure,  _great_ didn’t necessarily mean _good._


	2. Humble Beginnings

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Wherein we find out how very not humble our protagonist (antagonist?) is.

Learning came easily for Hidan. Chakra, math, traps, reading, weapons, taijutsu, all of it was _easy_.

‘Too easy,’ his instructors would whisper to each other, seemingly forgetting that Hidan had ears the same as they did. Two perfectly working ones—easily enhanced by a flicker of chakra.

The easiness of it all didn’t make school boring—per say—but he’d have preferred if they’d try to liven things up with more practical activities. Like field work. Heck, at this point Hidan wouldn’t mind taking a goddamned camping trip—if only to get out of this shit stain of a classroom once in a while.

He learned the shinobi techniques as quickly as he picked up reading and writing—pushing through them with a hunger that might have worried him under different circumstances. What would happen when he ran out of new things to learn? Would he ever? Could that _happen_?

Hidan hoped not. This world was so interesting and crazy (it had people on the _moon_ for fucks sake!) that he didn’t think he’d ever run out of new things to discover.

His teachers were a bit lackluster—often making subjects that should have been fascinating into monotone lectures long enough to put even the most dedicated student to sleep.

Hidan was not the most dedicated student. At least not to these shmucks running the Academy.  

His mother was the only person in this stupid village that he listened to with any amount of respect—which might’ve been because she legitimately terrified the fuck out of him. Nobody else really seemed to think she was frightening, they all adored her—enough that they mostly ignored the strangeness so obvious in her son (fucking mistake on their part).

He wanted to know how she convinced people she was trustworthy and normal even when she spent half her time cutting through tough muscle.

She was beautiful in the way many poisonous things were—a kind of beauty that made men (and women) come to a standstill in a crowded street—a hypnotizing kind of magnificence. One that was meant to trick the mind into thinking it harmless—to daze its victims and lure them in.

Hidan was sort of amazed that he’d inherited those looks as well. His skin was lighter than hers (corpse skin syndrome), but everything else about them matched—his dad must not have had very strong genes.

He hoped that their likeness would change as he grew and filled out—no need to look too girly, he was a man know, might as well embrace it—but for now he was her mini-me.

Though she was less a ninja nowadays than she was a politician, she was equally good at being both. Her dainty hands dipped into every important barrel—smiling and beguiling all the important people in their shitty village, and probably a fair few outside of it. She taught him everything he knew and he was both awed and frightened by her ruthlessness and her cleverness.

He hadn’t inherited near enough of her brains, that’s for sure.

 

\-----------

 

Before his schooling at the academy began, it was from her that he first learned what living in a world of super-powered contract killers might entail.  

When he first showed signs of having a fucking brain in his head, she’d stroke his hair as he lay in bed, whispering how best to incapacitate or kill a grown man—his bedtime stories full of blood and battle and chakra beasts. She’d weave tales about the missions she took when she was still a full time ninja. Assassinations, massacres, bounty hunting, etc.

She’d cuddle him close and sing a lullaby of the human body, encouraging him to sing along to the names of muscles, organs, and bones.

_Indoctrination at its finest (and most ruthless)._

She was not always gentle about his learning (in fact, any gentleness was extremely short lived). She turned to a more hands off approach for some things, letting him discover for himself how the world could hurt him—like getting burned on a hot stove, skinning his knee, breaking a bone falling from a tree branch, or cutting himself with a knife—then she’d explain to him how best to hurt someone else in similar ways.

She taught him how to treat injuries and sickness—how to identify weakness in other people (Were they sick, tired, injured? Where could he hit that it would hurt the most? The chest? That leg? A knock to the head?).

She taught him how the world worked, who held power and how best to gain it or make other's lose it. She gave him bingo books and made him memorize the faces and skills of shinobi so far above his skill level it was...actually pretty funny.

These guys and girls were the worlds makers and shakers.

His favorite lessons, by far, were when his mother took a hands on approach. When she bent his wild, never-ending energy toward training his body. He took to taijutsu like a proverbial duck to fucking water. Like with everything else, he learned quickly how fucking scary his mother was in regards to her strength and speed—he wanted more than anything to be better than her, better than anyone in this place, stronger than anyone human should ever be.

(Is he really human though?)

He learned to throw and take punches ( _so many punches_ ) and kicks, and how to fight opponents bigger than him with longer reach. She taught him how to throw his body around and make it a weapon, taught him how to use the environment to his advantage—but most of all she taught him how far he could go, how much his body could take, before it failed him.

(His body could take _a lot_ of punishment.)

She taught him how to break bones—clean or messy—and then she taught him how to heal them. She’d taught him when best to use strength, speed, or stealth.

And, throughout all her teachings, he learned for himself that suffering was the best way to learn. In his last life he'd been a lazy, good for nothing, piece of shit--but here strength was the law of the fucking jungle. Letting his body or his mind go to waste in this place wasn't even an option--at least not for Hidan. 

Here, he admired the proof of his hard work--the bruises that spread over his body in a bloom of reds, yellows, and purples—

_‘Ah,’ he thought to himself, poking and prodding at the wounds, ignoring the answering pulse/warning of pain, 'so this is what it means to be alive.’_

Suffering was a thing of fucking beauty. Taking a hit and getting right the fuck back up, ready for more--fucking exhilarating. And while it did sound a bit crazy when he put it that way, it's not like he actually said it outside the privacy of his mind. He was tiny but deadly!

Only once she was satisfied by his progress (when she felt his lessons would stick no matter what idiotic things the academy taught him) was he allowed to attend school for ninja’s.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Anyone see's something wrong let me know. I have no Beta to help!


	3. Glimpse

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which I attempt to give Hidan some character.

Hidan joined Yugakure’s shinobi academy at the age of eight. Not too early and not all that late—he was just another young face in a crowd of more hopeful faces.

His teachers would soon learn just how mistaken this image was—though really, what else could they expect? They were training these kids to be killers.

Hidan might have felt a smidgen of pity for all his classmates hoping to become shinobi—the ones who believed wholeheartedly that they would be heroes and failed to understand the truth of this carrier path—he might have, but as it stood, he was more entertained than anything.

He spent only a few months in the lower classes—managing normalcy by the skin of his teeth before giving up the charade. It was more trouble than it was worth.

\-----

No one was too alarmed by these changes until he was moved up to a level where actual physical contact took place, in the form of sparring.

Hidan might have been smaller than every other fucker in his class right now, but he sure as hell wasn’t weaker.

Hidan’s opponents figured that out quickly enough.

Perhaps it wasn’t all that surprising that he had no friends.

\------

Hidan graduated from the academy in a record two years—making him the youngest graduate in the history of Yugakure. Somehow, against all rationality, no one in the village was all that worried about the monstrously strong ten year old in their midst.

Rather shortsighted of them.

His mother, luckily enough, seemed satisfied by his speedy progression to genin. If only barely. She decided a ‘celebration’ was in order. After all, there were weeks left before he’d be placed on a team, and his mother made sure to capitalize on the extra time without mercy.

She did so by introducing him to a technique called ‘chakra sensing,’ which he was happy to see he had some marginal natural talent for. And he _was_ happy—until she proceeded to show just how fucking scary a game of hide-and-seek could be.

And if Hidan chose to wear his brand spanking new hitai-ate around his neck—well, a little extra protection against decapitation never hurt anyone.

\---------

It was pretty clear that whatever his jounin sensei had been expecting, Hidan wasn’t it.

Hidan, likewise, hadn’t been expecting the ball of unstoppable enthusiasm and restless energy that was his new sensei.

He was convinced that under that veneer of cheerfulness lay one seriously twisted and ruthless motherfucker--as seemed to be the theme with Tobi type personalities in the shinobi world--one Hidan was determined to never meet.

\--------

Kai had honestly gone into this whole jounin-sensei thing because he wholeheartedly believed it to be the perfect year to get his very own genin team. Children he could help guide on their way to becoming professional shinobi.

Two of his new students were gratifyingly ordinary—a girl and boy who’d graduated at 12 and 13 respectively. They both had a talent for trap-setting and long distance fighting.

The last of his tiny new team was even smaller than the others—having graduated at ten.

His fellow jounin-sensei’s had expressively asked not to have the poor kid placed on their teams. This, Kai would later learn, was probably the more sensible choice.

Hidan was the complete opposite of _ordinary,_ and, unlike his teammates, seemed to prefer running straight at his opponents no matter the difference in size or skill.

He was smart (though not exactly clever), stronger than any ten year old had any right to be, and utterly ruthless. He was also very _vocal_.

And by vocal, Kai meat that Hidan was almost never silent. He was either talking, shouting, humming, grumbling, hissing, whispering, and every once in a while he even took to singing.

The only time he was ever silent was when Kai ordered it—though even then it was reluctant—and, more worryingly, Hidan tended to get quiet when he was furious.

Unlike what his somewhat explosive personality suggested, when Hidan got really angry…instead of raging, he’d go cold and quiet—like a snake coiling itself up for its merciless one-strike-and-your-dead attack.

Which was pretty disturbing--no ten year old should react that way.

(Then agiain, "pretty disturbing" was perhaps all one needed to describe Hidan.)

Luckily, neither Kai nor the other’s had ever been on the other side of Hidan’s discontent. No, that seemed to be reserved for every opponent that failed to entertain Hidan with a tough enough fight, or the particularly foolish ones that rambled on like, to quote his small student, ‘a bunch of second rate megalomaniacs.’

His two older students were constantly torn between being disturbed and fascinated by their younger teammate. And, to be honest, Kai wasn’t all that far behind.

He was told by the academy teachers to watch his back around the kid…but it seemed Kai had managed to make a suitably impressive enough first impression that Hidan wasn’t inclined to play the same cruel tricks as he did on his previous teachers.

He was still unsure what it was that he’d done to earn Hidan’s twisted version of respect. He was also incredibly thankful for whatever it was—because it meant he could order Hidan to stop tormenting his teammates and the kid would actually listen.

Because Hidan did not like his teammates. Not one bit.

Oh, he never did anything overtly horrible—and participated in team building exercises despite wearing an expression of dark hate on his childish face. He was a bit too smart to attack his teammates directly. Instead he did what every child instinctively hated—he showed them up. And he did it without much effort.

Kai sighed as he watched two thirds of his team stand at attention in front of their Kage—forced to smack Hidan on the head so he’d stop slouching negligently.

_This was going to be an uphill battle._

\------

Hidan scowled to himself as he watched his sensei collect their tenth C-rank mission in as many months. He''d had high hopes that they’d finally be granted a higher ranked mission but no dice.

Missions in this village weren’t like other places. Getting a rank mission here was more like doing a slightly more difficult D-rank in Kumo or some other big village. Yugakure rarely received high profile clients--which meant that they didn't receive all that much money. Tougher jobs (worth more money) and richer clients tended to go to major villages, like Konoha, who cost more but were better equipped to handle A or S rank missions. Clients only went to a village like Yugakure when those villages refused them—and even then they were more likely to just outsource to a missing-nin (if they were especially brave or stupid).

It was little wonder he was considered a prodigy in this backwater place. Yugakure was sequestered away in the valley of a mountain range and didn’t have any protective walls to keep people out. Not that it was important enough to warrant spies. It was a place full of nobodies--meaning that literally no one important in the history of the shinobi world came from this village (Hidan had some plans to change that).

Even their Kage was something of a joke to the other nations—he took his orders directly from their Daimyo, who probably got their orders from some other hidden village. _Pathetic._

Yugakure’s position in the Elemental Nations should have made it a hub of commerce, stuck as it was between Fire Country and the Land of Rice—both of which were huge farming districts, with soil rich in nutrients. Perfect for planting all kinds of produce. Instead it was reduced to a mostly unused hot spring, which occasionally played host to celebrations and festivals but was mostly an in-between stop for weary travelers.

Hidan half listened as their orders were issued—Yugakure’s version of a C-rank left much to be desired, but Hidan was determined not to freak the fuck out and throw a massive homicidal tantrum. 

The shinobi world might be ludicrously tolerant towards 'weirdness,' but he wasn't quiet sure how Yugakure would feel about him killing off their Kage. Rampant homicidal tendencies should probably be dialed back.  

“Okay, I’ll see you three at first light.” Hidan glanced up, but his sensei was already gone.

Ignoring the doe-eyes his two teammate’s were giving each other and left to his own devices he wandered his way to his favorite training field (of which there were only four to choose from).

He’d taken to studying and practicing as many elemental jutsu’s as he could get his hands on—which wasn’t many, seeing as his sensei was a weapons specialist—in an attempt to figure out how each element worked and how best to force his chakra to shape it.

His own chakra nature—when his sensei finally managed to get his hands on some of the chakra conducting paper—was actually wind, with his probable secondary being water.

This had been equally frustrating and invigorating news to Hidan. Invigorating because he had a fucking chakra type! How fucking awesome was that?! But it was also aggravating because there were no shinobi in this place with Wind as their chakra type.

He had no clue why the original Hidan seemed to forgo using ninjutsu--it was magic!--but Hidan, as he was now, planned to fucking master this shit!

Hence his obsessive study tactics. Learning jutsu from scrolls was _difficult._

He’d so far managed to manipulate chakra into his fingers and snap them to create sparks—but further attempts to gather fire natured chakra had clashed too violently with his more prominent secondary nature, water. Which he had yet to fully experiment with.

Today would be designated to water walking--which was more of a chakra control excerise than anything else, but control was important and he would damn well perfect walking/running/fighting on water if he had to stay here all night to do it. Hidan wobbled over the boiling hot surface of the nearest hot spring and tried not to think about how willing he would be to kill someone for some decent techniques--anything to avoid asking his mother for advice again. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yeahhh...any ideas on plot making would be great--I have no clue where I'm going with this.


	4. The Descent

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A lot of things happen and time passes, and I realize that I still have no idea what I'm doing. Naruto sort of went tits up at the end there...not sure where this story should go.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> How the hell do people write action sequences?

Hidan takes his first kill six months after graduation, during his teams first B-rank mission--he'd already managed to gain a field promotion to Chunin (not a hard task--even when everyone says he has no leadership skills to speak of), and he can tell that his team is ready to thrust him on some other unfortunate assholes.

The target, a low risk civilian criminal, had taken to sleeping around and forcing himself on people he shouldn’t have. And one woman that he _really_ shouldn’t have—seeing as it had gone and gotten a kill order placed on him.

Their client was an older man with some serious paunch and a receding hairline—a wealthy politician of some kind—whose daughter had been attacked (sexually). Logically the only thing to do was to hire some professional killers to take care of this slight to his name.

Hidan squinted against the glare of the morning sun as he observed the interaction going down in the alley below him—crouching on the connecting rooftop using chakra gave him an excellent view of the proceedings.

“Stop begging.” The balding man ( _the target_ …what was the guy’s name, again?) snarled at the woman (why didn’t she fight?), whose face flushed red in both humiliation and anger.

Yep, this was definitely the guy. Now, to figure out what to do about him. The rest of Hidan’s squad was wandering around town, gathering intel, clearly not convinced they’d be finding their target in the city he’d last been spotted in.

After all, what kind of moron stayed in the exact same town that'd he'd raped a politician’s daughter in? This idiot, obviously.

Hidan sighed softly in disappointment. The guy was clearly a civilian—low levels of chakra and less than impressive musculature. He didn't need his team for this.

Not like it was going to be much of a fight in the first place. Might as well get it over with and save his team the disappointment of a boring task.

He jumped, landing with a whisper of sound against the ground—something that would have immediately alerted anyone with a smidgen of training. Over the ugly man’s shoulder the woman’s red-rimmed blue eyes went wide (with horror, shock, confusion? Didn’t matter.)

Hidan reached out and grabbed under the target's left arm (immobilizing the sweaty hand that held a flimsy looking knife at an incorrect angle) and then used his free hand to slit his fat throat—nice and deep.

The lady gave a strangled shriek and jerked away from the resulting spray of arterial blood. Hidan released the dead weight and let the body topple to the floor.

Hidan pushed the man’s shoulder with his foot, feeling a small measure of humor at the limp roll the action garnered.

He leaned in closer and pushed two fingers to the man’s throat, searching for a pulse (never hurts to check), getting an inordinate amount of blood on his fingers in the process. A useless action as it turned out, the man was pretty clearly dead.

No special resurrection jutsu there.

Hidan glanced up and down the alleyway, instinctively searching for witnesses. He scoffed a bit when he saw that the woman had passed out by the dumpster—arms and legs akimbo and face splattered with blood.

Must have been pretty traumatizing though. Heh. She’d get over it.

Hidan laughed a little under his breath and wiped his kunai clean on the targets shirt. Done and done.

Their target had been eliminated way ahead of schedule—now he just had to inform his sensei, and stuff the body in a scroll (never trust that they’re dead unless you have their head) so they could call it done.

Hidan looked back down at his first kill and let his brain reboot a bit—he brought out the body scroll he'd made and sealed the corpse so that it wouldn't deteriorate and make identifying their target harder than necessary.

His stomach let out a loud gurgle in the silence of the early morning. Brushing the blood off his fingers and onto the unconscious lady, Hidan decided to go grab some food and wait for his lame ass teammates to finish up whatever the hell they were doing so they could leave.

\------ 

Hidan turned 13 on April 2, it was springtime—plants were blooming and animals were fucking and Hidan regretted everything. Particularly, he regretted the fact that he had survived long enough here to experience _this_. This being puberty.

Puberty! He was being forced to go through puberty _again._ And not only that, it was  _boy_ puberty. Simultaneously the most horrible and most humiliating thing to ever happen to him.

It seemed as though his voice had dropped and his body had sprouted to a respectable height of 170cm (5’5”) in a single night. Relearning how his own body worked, while staving off completely inappropriate erections and working as a full time ninja was awkward and uncomfortable. To put it lightly.

He cursed and spit and yelled and whined and generally made it obvious how fucking pissed he was about all the hormone’s messing with his brain and body.

Incredibly, despite the worsening of his attitude, people had begun to pay some extra attention to the emergence of the incredibly hot man he’d eventually be. As they fucking should--but also, what the hell people?

You’d think the girls that approached him would be a little more careful. As much as he had inherited his mother’s looks—the edge of something not quite right was there for everyone to see. Weren't parents supposed to warn their kids about ninja children? Maybe something like, 'they're fucking crazy and not likely to live long,' or 'just don't.'

It was goddamned _mystifying_ how willing everyone was to overlook Hidan’s…everything else, just because he was pretty to look at. 

At least that sort of explained how that Uchiha kid got away with all the shit he pulled.

Luckily enough for the irritable teen, something happened to offset the incredibly dull turn towards normalcy puberty had begun to force upon him.

\--------

The first time Hidan died, he was on his first solo assignment and still a chuunin. It would go down in memory as the single most idiotic way he has ever died to date—bar none ( _Hah)_.

He was on a mission near some abandoned industrial warehouse, a huge dilapidated structure overrun with plants and rust where it lay sequestered somewhere on the border of the Land of Fire—fucking surrounded by unnecessarily huge trees (how did these things get enough water? it didn't rain nearly enough for them to grow like this).

His opponents were nothing to write home about—both chunin level and both long range fighters, which made getting in close enough to make the kill a fucking bitch.

They seemed prone to hopping up and away—chakra in their feet letting them jump across the trees and rusting structures—and had been doing so for a good hour now. After Hidan’s _surprise_ entrance into their lives, his targets had been doing their damnedest trying to delay the fucking inevitable.

“Stop fucking running!” Hidan yelled—smacking a kunai away from his face and letting the resulting explosion from the timed explosive-tag carry him into the air and closer to the idiot who threw it at him.

The ninja—what the fuck was this guy’s name again?—spun around and launched a fucking C-rank fire jutsu while Hidan was still stuck in the air with nowhere to go but straight down into it.

“MOTHERFUCKER!” It wasn't powerful enough to actually do much damage but it was still goddamned hot—and it’s the principle of the thing. Hidan hadn't used a single ninjutsu for this whole chase, the least these shits could do was return the favor.

_Though he guessed they kinda needed all the help they could get._

Fire-jutsu ninja really shouldn’t have stopped running—Whoops! There goes his head!

Other ninja gave a scream of denial—or perhaps he was simply announcing his, perfectly justifiable, terror to the world at large. Hidan snickered to himself, balancing effortlessly on the edge of some rusted bit of metal, and watching his last target skid to a stop and turn right around to face him.

_Ohhh—he’s gonna regret that._

He rolled the kink out of his neck, announcing, “Thank fuck! I was afraid this was gonna go on all day—” He was cut off and forced to leap away from a giant spike of earth--RUDE! The already dilapidated structure began to crumble under the assault, forcing Hidan to leap awkwardly from one falling piece to the next in order to get to his target.

The rage in the other’s eyes as he threw himself at Hidan was pretty refreshing to see—terror was getting to be a bit of a dull reaction. Of course, that didn’t stop Hidan from moving into the others space and punching his throat hard enough to collapse it—fucker still managed to get a kunai through his arm though.

And that’s when the wall under his feet gave out and the body collapsed on top of him—balance lost, Hidan threw the dumb shit off of him but couldn’t reorient himself mid air--

He felt something rip through his back and into his lungs, cutting off his ability to scream—he barely had time to register the jarring thud of flesh meeting immovable earth before everything went dark.

\------

Waking up was disorienting, mostly because he was struggling to breathe around all the blood in his throat and mouth.

He hacked as much as he could out onto the ground beside him but more just kept coming. Sitting up was excruciating—nerve endings screaming like the fucking devil was plucking at them. He let out an involuntary whine as he fumbled around, his abdomen stiff and his spine uncooperative.

Of course the reason for all the pain and inability to move correctly became quite obvious when he opened his eyes and saw the pole sticking out of his middle—colored red with blood and covered with little bits of bone and bodily gore. 

Hidan stopped moving and stared at the sight, drooling blood onto his front as he sat there like a moron. 

He might have stayed like that for an hour before the sound of approaching footsteps broke him out of his frozen state.

He looked over and saw a young woman holding a stick as a weapon—she’d clearly come to investigate all the noise. Though what she thought she could do with that stick completely escaped him. And seriously, shouldn't civilians know better than to come anywhere near a spot where ninja's might be fighting?

Her eyes searched the collapsed building with visible unease and then landed on Hidan, where they stared blankly at the sight for a good half-minute, before a stuttering sound of shock escaped her. If her eyes opened any wider they were liable to pop right out of her fucking head. It seemed she had finally registered that the man with a pole in his chest was still moving around—

She stopped in her tracks and they locked stares for a long, awkward moment.

Deciding it best to just ignore the woman, Hidan scoffed and looked back down to observe his _situation_ , trying to figure out the logistics of getting this thing out of him without passing out from pain or blood loss.

Meanwhile, his visitor had finally found her voice.

“Are you okay?” She managed to choke out, taking a single, shaky step toward him.

Hidan raised his head to glare incredulously at the woman.

_Did he fucking look okay?!_

Blood dripped down his face from the cut on his forehead, but she seemed more preoccupied by his gore covered chest. Jeez, isn't staring considered rude where you come from, lady?!

When he failed to reply, she took another tentative step forward, hands coming up in an instinctive but ineffectual gesture to lend aid.

“Woah, back the fuck up, lady.” Hidan growled, sounding like he just swallowed some gravel (or had a bar sticking through his lungs), inwardly amazed by this woman’s incredibly stupid question—he had a motherfucking pole sticking out of him, why would she ask if he was okay? And why would she come closer? Were all civilians this disconnected with reality, or was she just special? 

He took a glance to where he vaguely remembered bodily throwing his last target and sighed with relief (ignoring the spurt of blood that followed) to find the guy hadn’t gotten up and run off. Looked pretty dead from this angle, but Hidan preferred to make doubly sure (never know when some other idiot will go and develop some sort of immortality).

He pushed a shaky hand over his scalp to tame his hair, making the wound there flare back to life. His hair flopped, aggravatingly, right back down in front of his face when he removed his hand. It was then that he realized the fucker with the fire jutsu had burnt off a good chunk of his glorious locks.

\------

Suzu watched in rising terror as the impaled ninja screeched in frustration, pulling at his bloodied hair with his fists. What followed was an outpouring of insensible yelling followed by enough vulgar language to make her ears bleed.

Backing away from the clearly ~~insane zombie~~ horribly distressed and clearly injured man, she decided to pretend that this never happened. 

It wouldn’t be until a few years later that she realized how lucky she was to walk away from that encounter alive.

\------

Trudging back into town with his bounty and no evidence of his short lived death, Hidan scowled at every passerby—daring them to say shit about his battered appearance, or, Jashin fucking help them, his hair.

Hidan glanced at his face in a nearby window and resisted the urge to smash it to pieces, but only just.

He had a hole the size of his fist in his shirt and burns and blood scattered all over his body. How did cannon Hidan manage to get his head cut clean off and still come out squeaky clean and unaffected? One steel bar through his stomach and Hidan looked like an escapee from the local torture and interrogation unit. His hair was a fucking mess. All that time, growing it out and caring for it, and for what? To have some half-assed career chuunin sear it off with a fucking c-ranked fire jutsu! Fuck. FUCK!

He pushed his hand through the grey strands again, trying to get rid of the duck butt that had formed from trying to put it back into its usual slicked back position. Argh—just great. Now he looked like he’d stuck his finger into an electrical circuit.

He paused, ignoring the people giving him a wide berth on the sidewalk, and tilted his head this way and that, observing his image in the glass.

Hmm. It…it wasn’t actually that bad a look on him. It made him look a bit younger than he liked—at least now that he was taller and more filled out, the messy hair look didn’t make him look ‘adorable’ or any adjectives to the same affect.

It also didn’t make him look as manic as he thought it would—though that wasn’t saying much considering his level of general mania day to day.

He grinned saucily at his reflection and ignored the blood on his teeth. The patrons eating their lunches on the other side exchanged wide eyed looks of discomfort (which he, again, ignored). Not bad. Not bad at all.

At least he didn’t look like some emo Draco reject anymore. That’s a plus.


	5. For Want of Death

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hidan practices his subtlety--it goes about as well as one expects

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> warnings for: allusions to murder, disturbing imagery, actual murder, and Hidan being Hidan.

He knew from what he’d read of the manga that Hidan was an immortal (kinda?) that eventually got his ass kicked by some shadow wielding bad ass and his creepy deer…but he hadn’t known exactly how the whole undead thing came about in the first place.

Some sort of ritual? But no. It looked like Hidan had been _born_ with the inability to die permanently. He had no idea why this was or what had caused it. But the point was, he couldn’t die.

Death, the Inescapable, the Pale Rider, The Final Breath of the World, The End of All Things. The Universal Equalizer. It had passed him by. So what did that make Hidan? And what did it mean when a man whose occupation was to bring death to others...couldn't be killed?

It'd certainly be interesting to find out.

\----------

Hidan’s mother died two weeks before his sixteenth birthday.

He was, in true paranoid shinobi fashion, told nothing concerning the circumstances around his mother’s death.

Well, that wasn’t exactly true.

They’d told him some bullshit story that conveniently left out any concrete facts and danced around the details of her last mission.  

A mission she shouldn’t have even been on, considering she was _retired_. Though Hidan didn't consider himself so blind as to believe that any shinobi truly retired (unless it was death that retired them).

So Hidan found himself without his mother, bereft of the only thing he actually managed to care about, in a village that had become increasingly wary of his presence. 

Hidan's mother did not return from death (and neither had his father). So obviously this was a trait that had not been inherited from either parent and was likely of some unnatural origin.

He'd escaped death twice already (the second time featured an experiment involving a wind jutsu and a mudslide which he shall never speak of). Unless one counted his first death and subsequent rebirth.

So the question was; what was a ninja to do when they found themselves without any ties to their village and unable to be permanently harmed by any of the people they rather wished to see dying in agony.

There was nothing left in Yugakure—not for Hidan. 

He’d had, subconsciously, been holding out because of his mother—who he’d formed a connection to despite how clearly horrifying she been as a parent and how disturbing he'd been as a grown adult inhabiting a child's body. There was just no way he hadn’t been terrifying either—an adult forcibly stuffed in an itty-bitty (should have been innocent) baby? A grown adult that felt it was perfectly acceptable to act like the original Hidan, and therefor act like a homicidal loudmouth.

Though he couldn’t rule out the possibility that his mother had been perfectly accepting, and maybe even proud, of her ungodly spawn.

Considering her own twisted personality, it probably wasn’t far off the mark.

There was a short ceremony and a few words given in respect to her service for the village, which made Hidan's blood boil, before he was handed her already prepared ashes. Clearly they weren't stupid enough to let Hidan see his mother's body and find whatever evidence they'd left. Not that it would save them.

Nobody came over to give their condolences, taking one look at Hidan's carefully blank expression before hightailing it.

She'd left him one thing--a scroll unsealed with his blood holding a single name on it.

Let it not be said that Hidan couldn't take a hint. 

This was either an informant, of which his mother had many, or the person responsible for getting his mother killed.

As eager as Hidan was to get the hell out of this insignificant village...a little sleuthing could be just the thing to curb the writhing anger and insanity scraping at the edges of his brain. He'd much rather be clear minded when he slaughtered every last one of them.

\-----

Finding the person to whom the name belonged was not that hard a task, considering just how unprotected personal files turned out to be. Discovering that the name he was looking for was in a section conspicuously titled 'village sponsored spies' made things a little more interesting. And by 'village sponsored spies' he meant 'the shinobi version of internal affairs.' 

Had his mother bothered to check said files, it was possible she would have escaped death (or at least avoided it for while). 

The file showed the informant as a well-proportioned woman with long blond hair and grey eyes.

_Wasn't that making this too easy?_

He shrugged that off--whether the people in charge were all idiots or this was some sort of trap, neither would be any skin off his back.

It took him a whole night to check all the favorable places that the rest of the file had revealed to him. Honestly, one would think a ninja would know better than to get into repeating habits. 

The sun was just cresting the horizon when he stumbled upon a most welcome sight. He'd found his fucking target. The worn out establishment she was relaxing in was selling foodstuffs and hot drinks and was strategically placed for clandestine meetings--laying deep within Fire territory but on the outskirts of the nearest town. And far enough from Konoha and its border patrol stations that it was unlikely to cater to many shinobi.

His target was nestled comfortably in the back, facing the entrance he'd just come through, but far enough away from it that she was rather like cornered prey at this point. She might have been fast enough to escape through the kitchen had she been paying closer attention to her surroundings (and if Hidan wasn't so good at hiding his chakra)...but it wasn't likely that she could outrun him for long anyway.

She couldn't run forever--the need for food or sleep would eventually get to her.

Her obliviousness saved him the trouble of running her down.

When she finally glanced up and actually  _saw_ Hidan her expression changed from what was largely haughty indifference to... something different. Recognition followed by...anger, maybe? No, more in the nature of poorly stifled fear. Hidan had seen that look a lot. She hid it better behind the frozen expression, but only barely.

He could work with that.

He sauntered the rest of the way over, casual enough that not a single costumer bothered to take more than one glance at him. He was unarmed and clothed in simple looking garb (with minimal armor) that he looked almost harmless. Almost.

The woman, not any older than 25 or so, made an abortive movement toward the weapons pouch at her side before settling down in resignation. Hidan ignored the seat and motioned a serving lady for a tea before positioning himself in the way of kitchen door. Her pretty face remained blank as a steaming cup of tea was placed on the table, but her eyes shuttered--a gleam of hate and terror sparking to life before it was stifled.

"You're Hidan?" She looked him up and down as though to confirm his identity, despite having clearly recognized his features upon first glance.

Hidan withheld a scoff and leaned absentmindedly against the wall, slouching to make himself look smaller. "That's right," he confirmed with a grin that showed all his teeth and hide a snarl, watching as his position of high ground and blase indifference began to discomfort the kunoichi.

"Mind telling me what you know?" He continued when she remained silent and stiff in her seat. 

She frowned, taking care not to look in his eyes for whatever reason before glancing around the room as though to check the distance to the nearest exits. 

"I'd rather not. Not without some assurance that you won't kill me for what I have to say."

Hidan lifted his hand to his chin and stroked, pretending to think hard about that unsubtle plea for mercy. For an informant she didn't seem to be very _informed_  about Hidan's personality. 

Or perhaps she was, and thought such a plea would entertain him enough to let her leave alive.

Whatever the reason for it, Hidan had no interest in furthering any delusions pertaining to his true nature, "How about, you tell me what I want to know and I'll make your death a speedy one." He grinned, showing off his sharp eye-teeth and secretly hoping to insight some violence from her. It would certainly lighten up this boring meeting.

_Ugh, Shinobi and their fucking mind games--lets see some action already!!_

She seemed unimpressed, but likely recognized a dead-end (hah) when she saw one. Yeah, he'd seen her type before. Confident enough in their own skills and the protection of their village that they became rather  _over-confident_. Not to worry, Hidan would break such illusions of safety and power and bring her (and his darling village) screaming and crying into reality. 

He was just that great a person.

When the silence became a bit to long on her part, Hidan sucked in a huge breath and let his annoyance show on his face. It was enough to get the words flowing.

She grimaced, hands slowly shifting closer to her side and therefor her weapons pouch as she talked. Hidan cheerfully ignored that. "Most of the elders were in agreement that your mother's climbing of the proverbial political ladder had to stop. Everyone except our Kage and one elder agreed that you needed to be taken out as well." She sighed, eyes still carefully watching his arms and legs for any sudden movements, "Our _esteemed leader_ believed you had enough restraint to be accepting of and perhaps even willing to take a more active part in interaction between villages."

What?

That...was ridiculous. Anyone who'd actually _met_ Hidan, or even just saw him on the street, would known that he wasn't going to be any use in a political climate. And certainly wouldn't want him anywhere near _treaties._

Something of his thoughts must have shown on his face, because his companion's expression reflected uneasy agreement, "Apparently, as a genius, you gave them bragging rights." Her tone suggested a lot about her opinion on his so-called 'genius.'

Hidan said nothing to this. He was of the opinion that anyone who thought they had any ownership over him was a moron and one that would be dealt with, with prejudice. 

"They thought you'd be a perfect example of a rehabilitated ninja--once the village disbands its shinobi."

Hidan twitched at this announcement--because what? Seriously, what the fuck? Disband? Rehabilitate?

"We tried to tell them that you...wouldn't care for that." ' _because your fucking certifiable'_ was left unsaid but he heard it loud and clear.

So the informant was both informant _and_ the reason his mother was now little more than bits of bone and ash. And not only that--but his village was about to become even more worthless than it already was.

"Okay." He said faux calmly, watching her tense expression began to take a certain edge to it even as the rage scraped it knife fingers across the inside of his skull. 

"Okay?" She asked, a rather hilarious wobble to her voice as she finally looked up, eyes trailing over his lips and nose before connecting with his gaze. 

Whatever she saw in them had her face draining of any color, but she didn't move--seemingly frozen to her seat.  

"Yeah. Okay." He repeated mockingly, a growl growing in his throat despite his best efforts of remaining relaxed. 

Ah, well she was moving _now_. Standing up abruptly enough to knock over her chair, she started backing up toward the entrance. People were definitely looking at them now. Becoming aware of something happening as the atmosphere turned from tense to fearful.

Oops. Might have let out a bit too much blood lust just then.

He didn't move from his slouch until she'd gotten two steps away from the exit, her eyes still locked onto him--watching for any sign of violence. Her heel hit the ground and Hidan vanished.

She didn't pause to shriek, which was a little disappointing, simply turned and fled--hands fumbling at her pocket for a weapon.

Hidan hadn't actually become invisible or anything like that, he'd simply moved fast enough to look like he'd disappeared on the spot. An intimidation tactic that had worked out rather well for him. He grabbed his fleeing opponent by the waist and slammed her into a conveniently placed tree. Gotta love the Land of Fire, no shortage of trees to slam people against. 

She still had a hand free which she used to brutally backslap him in the face--an act made out of desperation rather than through any thought. His cheek throbbed from the chakra enhanced hit. He spit out a glob of blood onto the ground and tried, unsuccessfully, to suppress his grin.

\-----

She'd known running wasn't going to help her, but all her body wanted to do was get the hell away from that insane asshole.

He was much faster than his files had suggested--they'd implied that his 'genius' was something of a farce, but she could clearly see now that it was the elders that had been duped. And now she was going to pay for it.

Deep inside her, in a part she didn't like to look at too closely, something desperately hoped that Hidan made their death's painful.

Oh god, she'd just slapped him! No-no! Grab your weapon you fool! Don't just freeze in place! 

_Move, you stupid body!!_

He twisted his neck to look at her, but instead of the rage she dreaded would be there from her rash action, his expression had taken a decidedly bloodthirsty edge to it. His violet eyes--identical to his mothers in color--had darkened to black as his pupil expanded out. A gruesome smile stretched his otherwise handsome and youthful features into something  _monstrous_. 

She swallowed a scream of frustration and mingled fear and forced the disturbing expression of hunger from her mind--hand finally grasping the scroll for her weapon. She slashed haphazardly at her insane assailant as soon as it appeared in her hand and was granted enough room to breath. It didn't last nearly long enough.

\------

Hidan's smile turned a little more genuine as he eyed her weapon. She had a scythe. A very familiar scythe. A beautiful red and black one with three sharp blades sticking out of its pommel. She also clearly had no idea how to use it properly. Her hold on it was sloppy--though that could be a byproduct of terror.

Fuck, this must be _fate._

Well, there was no way he'd be letting this chick live _now._ As amusing as it would have been to watch her scamper back to the village elders and rave about Hidan coming to kill them all, it was probably smarter to not leave loose ends.

Besides, he _really_ wanted that weapon.

\-------

Pacifism was not a part of his nature—he longed to see people in strife, longed see what measures of depravity or kindness humanity would take to when pushed toward desperation, fear, anger, or hatred. People were always at their most honest, and most spectacular, when they were fighting for their lives.

He released his grip on the blond hair his fingers had tangled into--letting her head drop to the ground to join the body lying there. His new weapon could use a good wash.

His stupid village wanted to become the 'land that war forgot' and all that tripe. Well, fucking fine. He’d give them a sendoff they wouldn’t ever forget.

Besides, if they weren’t going to be a Hidden Village anymore—then they didn’t have much need for their shinobi, now did they?

Or their Kage for that matter.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Be sure to send me notes of any misspellings or awkward sentence structures--English is a strange language!


End file.
